Instant Reseller FAQs

Instant Reseller Basics

What is Instant Reseller?

Instant Reseller is a full-featured customizable eCommerce package that gets you instantly selling domain names and other products such as SSL certificates, web hosting, email and more, all under your own branding. You give your site a name, set a color scheme, upload a logo (or not), and set the pricing you want to charge for products and services. We take care of the hosting, merchant processing and all other services.

What products can I sell with Instant Reseller?

You can sell all the products we offer.

Domain names, ID Protect, Business Listing, DNS Hosting, Email Forwarding, and URL Forwarding are all part of our core package and cannot be excluded from your product list. You can choose to sell, or not sell, any other products we offer.

How do I purchase Instant Reseller?

To purchase and use Instant Reseller, you must be a reseller.

To become a reseller, log into your account. In the “Products & Services” menu, click “Become A Reseller”. Click “Apply Now”. Complete the form and click “Apply for a Reseller Account”.

When your parent converts you to reseller status, log into your account, agree to the Reseller Agreement, and click “Submit”.

Resellers work from an account balance rather than direct credit card charges, and account refills are by credit card. To specify a credit card, in the “Quick Links” tab click “Credit Card Settings”. Fill in the credit card information and click “Save Changes”.

To set up your own domain sales web site, you must purchase Instant Reseller, and you must have a domain name that’s either registered with us or uses our DNS Hosting.

To purchase Instant Reseller and a domain name, log in and click "My Account". In the "Reseller Quick Links" tab, click "Get your own" and then click "Buy Now". In the "Option 1" text box type the domain name you’d like for your web site and click "Search". Select the check boxes by the domain names you want and click "Continue". Click "Checkout Now". Agree to the Terms and Conditions and click "Purchase Items".

How much is Instant Reseller?

Basic Setup and Customization

What is the bare minimum I need to do to open my own storefront?

At minimum you must associate a domain name with, and publish, your storefront.

To select a domain name, log in and click "My Account". In the "Reseller Quick Links" tab, click "Manage My Instant Reseller". In the "Publish" tab, confirm that the domain name for your storefront is listed properly. If not, click "Search your domains", find the domain name you want to use, click "Add", and then click "Save". In the dialog box, click "OK".

To go live with your storefront, click "Publish Changes".

What are the recommended configuration steps for Instant Reseller?

Although you can get away with simply associating a domain name and clicking "Publish", we recommend that you spend a few minutes configuring your storefront so that it projects a more distinct image.

To set up your storefront, log in and click "My Account". In the "Reseller Quick Links" tab, click "Manage My Instant Reseller". Work through the tabs to customize everything from your product offerings to the colors in your web site.

All the basic design choices, and basic information you should provide, are displayed by default on the tabs. More advanced customization options appear if you click the links on the tabs, but they are optional.

Once configured, you can preview your site, or go live immediately. To preview, click the "Settings" tab and click "Save and Preview Beta". To go live with your site, click the "Publish" tab and then click "Publish Changes".

What is a theme?

A theme is a skin that wraps around your storefront. We have many themes to choose from, and several of them allow you to select your own colors. If you would like to do more customization, we provide tools to alter any of the default themes.

How do I choose a theme?

Log in and click "My Account". In the "Reseller Quick Links" tab, click "Manage My Instant Reseller". In the "Theme" tab, click "Select Theme" to specify the theme you want, and if applicable open the "Alternate Styles" menu and select a color alternative. Click "Save to Beta".

Note that if your customers have purchased a service, and then you discontinue offering it, those customers will still be able to manage the subscriptions they’ve already purchased, but they won’t be able to add new subscriptions. Products you do not offer will not be displayed at all for customers who have not previously purchased them.

Sign into your Google account at http://www.google.com/analytics/settings/. Copy the Web Property ID (the Web Property ID is located to the right of the URL you want to track, and is a three-part string in format UA-NNNNNNNN-N). In the Instant Reseller "Website Analytics" text box, paste the Web Property ID and click "Save to Beta".

Is there a basic editor for the "Welcome" and "About Us" content?

Yes. You have three options for your "Welcome" and "About Us" messaging: you can use our default text, replace it with custom text, or paste your own HTML code into our HTML Editor.

To customize the "Welcome" and "About Us" messages in your storefront, log in and click "My Account". On the "Reseller Quick Links" tab, click "Manage My Instant Reseller". In the "Theme" tab, click "Content Editor". Modify the "Welcome Text" and "About Us Text" as you wish. Both support either plain text or HTML.

Note that the text you supply here replaces our default text, unless you enable the full HTML option in the "Home Page Overview Editor".

Can I choose my own colors for the themes you’ve created?

Some themes (the ones that show the color icon below the thumbnail) allow you to specify colors in hex format.

If your custom content includes images or other files, click "File Manager". Browse and upload your files as needed.

What are custom tags and how do I use them?

We have created a library of dynamic tags for your custom HTML. Paste the tags into your HTML to call the current values for all your settings: product prices, your contact information, and so on. By using these tags, the marketing text in your web site keeps up with any changes you make to your settings.

You configure your settings throughout the storefront manager and in your pricing pages.

Select the "Header" check box if you want to supply your own header HTML; select the "Home Page Header" check box if you want a home page header that’s different from the headers on the rest of your site (if you don’t select "Home Page Header", your home page header will be the same as the other pages on your site). Paste your header HTML in the text boxes.

Select "Footer" check boxes and supply footer HTML if you wish.

Click "Save to Beta".

To use our library of dynamic content tags in your headers and footers, click "Tag Guide".

You can switch back and forth between your custom HTML and the default content, at any time, simply by selecting or clearing the check boxes, saving, and publishing. We’ll save your custom content even if you’ve disabled it temporarily.

If I change themes, will my custom content still be enabled?

If you change themes, your custom content will be disabled but will still be present in the editors. You can simply go through the editors and enable all the custom content you want to display in your new theme.

Where can I upload my custom logo and favicon?

Log in and click "My Account. In the "Reseller Quick Links tab click "Manage My Instant Reseller". Click "Settings" and scroll to the "Branding Options" section. Use the "Browse" and "Upload" buttons to find and upload your logo and favicon files.

Note that some themes may not support the display of logos.

Instant Reseller sizes logos to 250 x 60 pixels and we recommend that you upload them at this size. If that’s not feasible, you can upload an image of a different size and reset the dimensions using CSS through the Custom CSS Editor.

How can I upload the other files I want to use to customize my storefront?

Log in and click "My Account. In the "Reseller Quick Links tab click "Manage My Instant Reseller". Click "Theme" and then click "File Manager". Use the "Browse" and "Upload" buttons to find and upload files.

Once your file is uploaded, notice the name of the file includes '/user/'. This is the full path to the file that you will use when referencing the file within your custom HTML or CSS.

For files I upload to customize my Instant Reseller site, what are the file size limits?

You can upload files up to 4MB in size. However, remember that the smaller your files, the faster they’ll display on your site.

If I upload my own files to customize my Instant Reseller site, what file extensions can I use?

Our system allows you to upload the following file extensions:

.pdf

.htm

.html

.xml

.js

.zip

.rar

.css

.fla

.flv

.swf

.jpg

.jpeg

.png

.gif

.bmp

.psd

.svg

.tiff

.doc

.docx

.txt

.rtf

What tools can you recommend for customizing a theme?

Although we provide all the tools you will need to customize your theme there are some 3rd Party tools that will greatly help in customizing the look and feel of your site. Below is a list of free tools we suggest having ready before customizing your theme.

Previewing and Publishing Your Storefront

What is the Beta site?

Your Beta site allows you to preview design changes you make to your storefront before you publish to your live site. You can make all the changes you want to the Beta and when you have it just the way you want, you can publish your changes to your live site for all your users to see.

Pricing changes go live as soon as you save them; you don’t have to republish your site to adjust your pricing.

How do I preview the changes I’ve made to my storefront?

Note that some browsers will not display the Beta site if you have pop-ups blocked. You may need to allow an exception or turn off your pop-up blocker in order to preview the Beta site.

Can I undo the changes I made to my storefront?

You can undo any changes that you haven’t published. To revert your Beta site to your last published version, log in, click "My account", and then click "Manage My Instant Reseller". On the "Publish" tab, click "Reset to current published settings".

Do you provide a way of hiding my Beta site?

Yes, we provide the ability to hide your Beta from other users who know your account login. Log in, click "My account", and then click "Manage My Instant Reseller". On the "Settings" tab, scroll to the "Beta Storefront" section, select the check box, type a password, and click "Save to Beta".

How do I go live with my storefront?

To publish and view the changes in your live site, log in and click "My Account". In the "Reseller Quick Links tab, click "Manage My Instant Reseller". In the "Publish" tab, click "Publish Changes". In the dialog box, click "OK". In new browser, go to your storefront. You can log in with your own account ID, navigate through the site, and view changes.

Renewing Instant Reseller

How do I renew my storefront?

Log in and click "My Account". In the "Reseller Quick Links" tab, click "Manage My Instant Reseller". Click the "Settings" tab. In the "Subscription Settings" section, open the menu and choose the number of years you want to renew. Click "Add To Cart". Click "Checkout Now" and then click "Purchase Items".